In certain types of medical emergencies a patient's heart stops working, which stops the blood from flowing. Without the blood flowing, organs like the brain will start becoming damaged, and the patient will soon die. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can forestall these risks. CPR includes performing repeated chest compressions to the chest of the patient, so as to cause the patient's blood to circulate some. CPR also includes delivering rescue breaths to the patient, so as to create air circulation in the lungs. CPR is intended to merely forestall organ damage and death, until a more definitive treatment is made available. Defibrillation is one such a definitive treatment: it is an electric shock delivered deliberately to the patient's heart, in the hope of restoring the heart rhythm.
Guidelines by medical experts such as the American Heart Association provide parameters for CPR to cause the blood to circulate effectively. The parameters are for aspects such as the frequency of the chest compressions, the depth that they should reach, and the full release that is to follow each of them. If the patient is an adult, the depth is sometimes required to reach 5 cm (2 in.). The parameters for CPR may also include instructions for the rescue breaths.
Traditionally, CPR has been performed manually. A number of people have been trained in CPR, including some who are not in the medical professions, just in case they are bystanders in a medical emergency event.
Manual CPR may be ineffective, however. Indeed, the rescuer might not be able to recall their training, especially under the stress of the moment. And even the best trained rescuer can become fatigued from performing the chest compressions for a long time, at which point their performance may become degraded. In the end, chest compressions that are not frequent enough, not deep enough, or not followed by a full release may fail to maintain the blood circulation required to forestall organ damage and death.
The risk of ineffective chest compressions has been addressed with CPR chest compression machines. Such machines have been known by a number of names, for example CPR chest compression machines, CPR machines, mechanical CPR devices, cardiac compressors, CPR devices, CPR systems, and so on.
CPR chest compression machines typically hold the patient supine, which means lying on his or her back. Such machines then repeatedly compress and release the chest of the patient. In fact, they can be programmed to automatically follow the guidelines, by compressing and releasing at the recommended rate or frequency, while reaching a specific depth.
The repeated chest compressions of CPR are actually compressions alternating with releases. The compressions cause the chest to be compressed from its original shape. During the releases the chest is decompressing, which means that the chest is undergoing the process of returning to its original shape. This decompressing does not happen immediately upon a quick release. In fact, full decompression might not be attained by the time the next compression is performed. In addition, the chest may start collapsing due to the repeated compressions, which means that it might not fully return to its original height, even if it were given ample opportunity to do so.
Some CPR chest compression machines compress the chest by a piston. Some may even have a suction cup at the end of the piston, with which these machines lift the chest at least during the releases. This lifting may actively assist the chest, in decompressing the chest faster than the chest would accomplish by itself. This type of lifting is sometimes called active decompression.
Active decompression may improve air circulation in the patient, which is a component of CPR. The improved air circulation may be especially critical, given that the chest could be collapsing due to the repeated compressions, and would thus be unable by itself to intake the necessary air.